The Israel Venture Capital (IVC) Research Center announced that Israeli high-tech firms were able to rake in US $493 million in venture capital during the second quarter. The figure is up by 4% compared with the first quarter's financing.

It was further revealed that the amount accumulated for the second quarter was 3% higher than the funds raised during the same period in 2012. IVC made this accounting together with KPMG, an Israeli office of consultancy.

"The uptick in investments in the second quarter reflected in part relatively robust activity in the medical devices segment," said a partner at KPMG's technology group Ofer Sela.

"Yet, more than two years after the launch of the Israeli government initiative to promote investments in the life sciences, the sector as a whole is still not showing the expected results," Sela added.

High-tech companies in Israel have been regarded as key drivers of the country's economy. It has prompted growth of up to 3.2% last year.

An Israeli has invented a tool that will shave time off of peeling carrots. The device? The Karoto, looks and works like a large pencil sharpener, and peels vegetables such as courgettes and carrots or any similar-shaped vegetable.Designed by Avichai Tadmor for Monkey Business design studio in Israel, it isalso touted for its safety. The Karoto’s creative team says it is a safer way to slice the skin off vegetables compared to using a peeler or knife.Tadmor and his team claim the Karoto can completely peel a carrot in less than 30 seconds and say that not only does it save time but the shavings can also be used for decorative purposes.Jenni Day, sales manager at London-based Luckies – a gift site that sells the Karoto in the UK - told the Daily Mail: “The Karoto is a really fun, quirky gift that can make preparing dishes a bit more interesting.“It makes peeling vegetables easy and can be used with any long root vegetables such as carrots, courgettes, parsnips, and cucumbers.“It comes with restrictions for children’s use as a lot of items of cutlery and kitchen gadgets do, but it is definitely easier to do than other ways of peeling vegetables. It looks like a pencil sharpener and works in a similar way and I would say it would take about 30 seconds to peel a carrot.” “Not only does it make peeling a fast process but it also leaves curls which can be used to decorate salads and brighten up other dishes.”The Karoto comes in both orange and black and is sold for around 10 pounds in the UK.Watch a video of the Karoto in action below:

Punjab farmers to adopt dairy farming techniques of Israel

MUKTSAR: Punjab government recently sent a delegation of progressive dairy farmers to Israel to acquaint themselves about modernised techniques of dairy farming under its initiative 'Incentive dairy cattle production training program'. The farmers and experts examined the latest dairy farming techniques in Israel in order to enhance the process of promoting allied agricultural activity and to supplement incomes.Mukatsar deputy director dairy Karnail Singh, who was part of delegation, said that the delegation visited many modernized large dairy farms in Israel and got information regarding latest techniques used by Israeli dairy farmers". He said there are two types of dairy farms in Israel, cooperative based and family based locally known as Kibbutz and Moshav respectively. In Israel 776 family farms exist, each with strength varies from 50 to 200 HF cows. While in cooperative farms strength of cows varies from 200 to 1000 per farm and in total 163 such Kibbutz farms exist in Israel. He said that each cow produces 11667 litres milk per lactation period and per day milk production per animal is 38 litres in Israel. Israeli farmers send those animals to slaughter house whose average production decreases from this mark, he added.He said that environment of Israel is similar to Punjab but still in Israel they made special arrangements to control heat stress. Sheds were made in such a way that animal can move freely to feeding line.Solar systems are installed on each sheds to generate own electricity for farm needs. All dairy farms are fully computerized, as every information like fat, protein in milk; fodder quality etc is noted by computers. He said that Israeli farms are fully mechanized and manual labour works are very limited. He said the experts would promote those techniques in Punjab to increase per capita milk production in state.